I have some questions...

So I'm watching MOTD2 and I can't help but notice that Mark Lawrenson looks a bit like an old centaur recovering from a long-standing heroin addiction, Michael Owen meanwhile still looks like he's about 7 years old, and their combination as analysts is about as entertaining as having bowel cancer, so we'll turn our attention to the football. Fernando Torres is BACK, because he tapped the ball into the empty net for his first league goal since DECEMBER. Manchester United are BACK because they won 1 game and are still EIGHT points behind Arsenal, but they're BACK. Let's play the reserving judgement game, I'll believe Torres is back when I see him even listed on the goalscoring charts, and I'll believe Manchester United are back when they actually win convincingly and frequently.

1) WHY DIDN'T JOE HART ASSUME NASTASIC COULD DEAL WITH THAT SIMPLE BOUNCING BALL??

Gareth Bale scored 2 (he scored 1 very good goal and got 1 very fortunate deflection), and set up 2. He scored the first 2 goals, then Ronaldo scored 1, then Sevilla scored 2, then Ronaldo scored another 2. So let's tally up - Bale 2, Sevilla 2, Ronaldo 3 (and Benzema 2, if you were counting).

2) WHY DID JOE HART START RUNNING IN THE FIRST PLACE??

So, umm, I think that Javi Garcia is probably sleeping with Manuel Pellegrini, that's basically the only explanation for he's still allowed to inhabit a football pitch wearing a Manchester City shirt. What I also think is that when the pressure starts to lift on Moyes, as it probably will in coming weeks when United dispatch Fulham & Arsenal, then it is probably going to come down quite heavily on Manuel, who could really use a few home games right about now. Speaking of City, Jack Rodwell is still alive - apparently.

3) WASN'T IT TOTALLY UNNECESSARY FOR JOE HART TO GET INVOLVED AT ALL??

Mathieu Flamini is going to miss key games for the Gunners, meaning the Gunners are now going to very quickly stop being top of the league. Oh well, fun while it lasted...

4) WHAT DID JOE HART ACTUALLY THINK HE WAS GOING TO DO TO HELP THE SITUATION??

Thinking about it, the next series of Masterchef might be a David Moyes v Manuel Pellegrini head-to-head if they keep making such a meal out of it. Pellegrini has used ingredients such as Jack Rodwell and Javi Garcia to make a scraped win in the Crapital Two Mickey Mouse LDV Vans Why Do We Even Bother Wasting Everyone's Time Cup, whilst David Moyes has used Tom Cleverley to make a slightly more exciting meal out of Stoke City.

5) SERIOUSLY WHAT DOES JOE HART THINK IS GOING TO HAPPEN ONCE HE'S CHARGED OUT OF HIS PENALTY AREA??

So I'm watching the Football League Show, and the Spurs game goes to penalties and the commentator narrating Eric Lamela's penalty says he was bought at great expense from Lazio, which he wasn't, he then says that this is only Gedo's second game in English football, which it definitely wasn't, and then he claimed that Nick Proschwitz was inevitably going to score because he was German, which he isn't. Isn't his job basically to have things to say about football? He has the simplest job in the world, and still manages to screw it up - it's like hiring a golf commentator who doesn't know what a par 4 is. But then Sky do employ Niall Quinn, BT Sport employ Michael 'duller than a sack of scrabble tiles' Owen, and the BBC still seem to also think that John Motson isn't as out of touch as he obviously is.

6) WHAT IS WRONG WITH JOE HART'S BRAIN??

So I'm watching Arsenal-Chelsea, and I had a massive flashback. It was same old Chelsea, looking like classic Chelsea-under-Mourinho: solid & good on the break, and classic Wenger against Mourinho - because he lost. This is it though - they got shown up against Dortmund, exposed against Chelsea (admittedly it's never going to be an easy win if you select Nicklarse 'no, really, i am a professional footballer' Bentdnernerner), and they're going to be exposed even more against Manchester United on November 10th (oh and also against Dortmund again on November 7th). This is it, this is Arsenal's season breaking down, they've surprised everyone by plugging away so far, but now shorn of one grubby little French ball-winner they're going to slide out of contention like vomit sliding down the door of the fridge.

7) SERIOUSLY! THERE WAS JUST NO DANGER AT ALL UNTIL HART GOT INVOLVED. WHAT THE WHAT THE WHAT THE FUCKING FUCKING FUCKING FUCK WAS HE THINKY THINKY THINKY THINK THINKING?!

It wasn't just that they made a meal of dealing with a simple ball, it's that they made a 12-course banquet out of dealing with a Stoke-style hoof that was more speculative than Peter Andre's pop career.

Worth every penny

Celtic last night recorded a 'highly deserved' win, that is according to the BBC website. Honestly, it would be generous to even say they edged it - Ajax should've scored 7, Thulani Serero alone should've scored at least twice, the first chance was so simple and routine you could've slapped it in with a curly straw, the second just required a modicum of attacking competence. Elsewhere in the game Nir Biton attempted to break someones leg, and Jesus Samaras managed to bumble his way through another Champions League match without killing anyone, so well done to him.

People are still giving out to David Moyes in the wake of a comfortable and convincing home win. What was most impressive, and who was most impressive, was the 90-year-old Welshman in the middle of the park who linked everything together and made Champions League football look as easy as getting out of the bath, both that achievement and successfully negotiating the towelling off period remain impressive at his age. 

Arsenal, meanwhile, spent their managers birthday demonstrating the importance of Mathieu Flamini. The tramp-a-like Frenchman was absent from a midfield which folded every time the opposition had possession, looking holier than St Peter whenever it wasn't actually Arsenal who had the ball. What Arsenal can learn from the game is that it might be a super idea to sign someone else who can play that role just in case the grubby little ball-winner happens to ever be missing from any game ever again.

Looking back to Sunday we saw Leeds United score FOUR goals in a home game against Birmingham City. It was a game which saw Brian McDermott finally realise that 3-5-2 might make some sense for a team that doesn't have any wingers, it gave Byram license to get forward, it allowed United to dominate the game, and it allowed MATT SMITH to bag TWO goals. However, Birmingham's first-half display could hardly have been worse. The incompetence of the defence was only matched by its incoherence, and these flaws were compounded simply by the presence of the walking hat-stand that is Dan Burn, a 'defender' who has pulled off the greatest magic trick in the history of magic tricks by convincing people to actually take him seriously as a professional football player. Aside from fielding the new Ali Dia, Birmingham also managed to field an embodiment of nepotism, in the form of Rob Lee's son Olly, Rob Lee being a former team-mate of Birmingham boss Lee Clark, Olly Lee being the most appalling excuse for a footballer since Dan Burn. Elsewhere in the Birmingham team we got to see walking freak-show Nikola Zigic bumble around the pitch wondering, much as everyone else was, what he's still doing there, and we got to see Kyle Bartley charge around the pitch wondering who the hell he'd managed to sign for. That shouldn't necessarily take the gloss of Leeds' biggest win in what feels like decades, but it kind of does. What i'm saying is that the jury is still out on the Leeds revival, in fact the jury hasn't even got its instructions yet, the jury is still sleeping through the trial at this stage.

Elsewhere, Ian Holloway has finally departed Selhurst Park. He joined with the club second in the Championship and was fortunate to lead them into the playoffs after a string of average displays, he has since presided over the selection of Stuart O'Keefe and Damien Delaney in Premier League football matches, along with the signing of SIXTEEN players over the Summer. Little wonder, with Kevin Phillips having all the impact of a nail clipping coming off the bench, that Ian has been invited to vacate his position, he departs with a THIRTY percent win percentage, even if you exclude the SEVEN games they've lost this season he's still lost as many as he's won at Palace, although it's hardly his fault that they are a team vastly out of their depth, although that in itself might be the problem.

It's finally time to turn our attention to the book of the week - Bonkers: My Autobiography in Laughs by Sir Jennifer Ferguson-Saunders - she tears into the likes of Roy Keane, reveals what it was like working with Dawn French & talks about her regrets regarding David Beckham. Starting with Keane, Saunders sensationally reveals that Roy has quite an unbalanced personality, we didn't guess that from when he DELIBERATELY ended Alf-Inge Haaland's CAREER for something the Norwegian once SAID to him. I've always thought Keane a reasonable and rational man, I'd never have thought he was mentally unbalanced, borderline psychopathic and unsafe for human consumption, never would I have ever said he was insane, deranged, demented and seven buttons short of a cardigan. Saunders goes on to confess that Eric Djemba-Djemba wasn't a success at Old Trafford during a disappointing spell which bankrupted the proud Cameroonian as he squandered his wages on 10 4x4s. Jennifer did then go on to curiously claim that United 'battered' Man City during a game which finished with the Citizens claiming a SIX-ONE victory, in which United played with the same level of competency with which a fish writes screenplays. Saunders also SENSATIONALLY claimed there was no footballing reason for Beckham to move to L.A, which is obviously contrary to all previous and popular belief, she also professed a dislike for the F.A, and made the absurd, ridiculous and libelous claim that Wayne Rooney was never in charge of transfer policy at Manchester United. What actually comes out is that the greatest revelation in Bonkers: My Life in Telling People Nothing They Didn't Already Know by Sir Alex 'Ab Fab' Saunders is that Ruud Van Nistelrooy was actually Rude Van Nistelrooy. WORTH EVERY PENNY.

Błïmêŷ, so thåt's actually happened...

Montenegro lost 5-2 to the 129th best team in the world, Moldova (who sit perched behind Namibia, Tanzania and Luxembourg in the rankings), and that's a result which would take the gloss off this international break if it wasn't for England being so emphatically not bad throughout it. Poland's lack of quality and motivation sincerely aside, England were as good as they've been in my lifetime, Roy seems to have cottoned on, and they've discovered Andros Townsend. Furthermore, Steven Gerrard was absolutely terrific, and Chris Smalling didn't totally bollocks anything up! The question is whether they'll be so daring against less average opposition, which they won't, they'll be 10-men behind the ball. Although it would appear England and Roy have turned a corner, Roy Hodgson's post-match press interview reeked of a man who had no idea how he'd managed to cure cancer. He referred to a 5-0 win against Montenegro which never ever happened, all the while displaying the demeanor of a bemused elderly gentleman in a home who might shuffle round the day room telling everyone he was Alf Ramsey. And that's basically what's happened to all my optimism, it's been sucked away by the old man in the knitted cardigan. 

In the aftermath of the victory Roy Hodgson has said that qualifying for this tournament is his best moment in football, which is saying something when you consider that he has been in the management game since the time when the Angles, Saxons and Jutes were playing home matches against the Vikings.

While other nations were busy qualifying for the World Cup, Egypt have set themselves quite a challenge, having been on the receiving end of a 6-1 defeat in the first leg of their qualification play-off with Ghana, after the game fans in the stadium were in philosophical mood, unanimously agreeing that Ghana deserved to represent Africa and had been far superior to the Egyptians, which is the difference between living in a country where alcohol is religiously forbidden and living anywhere else in the world.

San Marino, meanwhile, confounded expectations by only conceding 8 against Ukraine. It's amazing that none of the twelve people who've managed to find the net for San Marino in their illustrious history as a team managed to find the net tonight, though they were trying where Rickie Lambert has failed, which puts them in a category with several Conference South strikers. I still want to know who keeps inviting San Marino to participate. They have ended on a -53 goal difference, they've only failed to lose 5 times in their history. WHAT ARE THEY LEARNING FROM THIS? To be fair they've improved, they've improved in their matches against Ukraine to the tune of conceding one less goal, and if that trend continues then in just EIGHT games they'll be bagging a 0-0 draw. What is ever going to change? When is it ever going to be different? It must be demoralizing, it is senseless violence, it's not endearing and it's not brave, it's embarrassing for everyone who has to actually turn up and play against this motley band of turnip grinders and dental nurses. Please, for the love of God, just stop wasting everybody's time (your own included - unless you think that 0-0 draw with Lebanon made it all worthwhile). I'm genuinely interested to know why they keep doing it, what does it achieve? Please, other football teams, come and slaughter us. Maybe in 10 years we'll get another draw, which will only leave us 16 points away from getting anywhere near qualifying for anything.

JUMPING ahead suddenly to today because I forgot I hadn't published this post, it was during the West Ham-City game on Sky that a debate resurfaced that I missed commenting on at the time. The commentators bought up the subject of Sergio Aguero's penalty against Everton, which rebounded off the post, off Tim Howard, and into the net, and counted as a Tim Howard Own Goal in the official record, depriving Sergio Aguero of a statistic. The commentators seemed to think this was a travesty, ignorant of the fact that what happened was Sergio Aguero kicked the ball off target (i.e. into the post), it rebounded out (i.e. away from goal - not into it), and encountered an obstacle (i.e. the back of Tim Howard's baldy head) and rebounded into the goal (an object in whose direction it had not previously been travelling). So let's summarize, Sergio Aguero missed a penalty, the ball rebounded into play, hit another player, went in. This should be Sergio Aguero's goal should it? Because today he hit a couple over the bar and one just wide, should they have counted as well? He scored a couple in the garden during the week, should we be counting them too? What if he had a shot, the keeper saved it and, say for example, Silva followed in, should that be his goal? Let's look at what would be happening in that situation - Sergio Aguero would've kicked the ball, it would've rebounded out (i.e. AWAY FROM GOAL - NOT INTO IT) and then encountered an obstacle (i.e. David Silva's boot, head, chest, knee, whatever) and rebounded into the goal (AN OBJECT IN WHOSE DIRECTION IT HAD NOT PREVIOUSLY BEEN TRAVELLING). Wow, that sounds familiar. In short, it's not a debate, it's an own goal.

Elsewhere, Liverpool floundered in the face of depleted opposition, Manchester United floundered in the face of an impressive string of two passes, West Ham floundered in trying to do an impersonation of Spain by playing without any strikers, and Sunderland countinued to flounder more impressively than anyone else in the division.

Oh and vis-a-vis 'that David Marshall incident' - not the first one which was handball, but the second one which ended up as a goal, in what way is David Marshall 'in control of the ball'? I get that the law says he is, but how is he, and why does it say that? He is in control of the ball, when it's in his hands and you'd have to use illegal methods to get it out of his hands, but when he throws it out of his hands, in what way is he in control of the ball? What if the ball then bounces away and he doesn't catch it again, is he still in control of the ball? When does he become out of control of the ball? The way I see it is he's in control of the ball, then he lets go of the ball, then he's not in control of the ball. Law on that is stupid. If he bounces the ball at a Chelsea player it's his own stupid fault if he ends up conceding. Also, congratulations to Torres for almost looking interested at one point, and congratulations to David Luiz for continuing to look about as clueless regards defending as monkeys look clueless regards quantum field theory. 

Oh and vis-a-vis Gareth Barry, what exactly was it that made the on-loan midfielder go into Lee Catermole mode this weekend? After one De Jong style studs up assault on Danny Graham that saw the 'striker' stretchered off, he then went after Sone Aluko's shin bones with a tackle that would've given David Batty an erection. After the game Gareth went before the cameras to straighten the matter out, he confessed that he thought he took the ball in the Aluko challenge, meaning that Gareth Barry now can't tell the difference between ball and leg, so watch out basically everyone. 

Good news for fans of the Football Manager franchise, with the BETA edition now available players have access to the great news features, take this for example - the manager will be informed IF THE CLUB IS BANNED FROM EUROPEAN COMPETITIONS - yes that is the sort of development a manager might like to be kept abreast of.

Ruddy Annoyed

For those of you who preordered Football Manager 2014 and are awaiting the early release of the BETA version, take solace in the fact that semi-decent professional footballers already have it. This is because they give 'invaluable feedback' since they are in the industry. Yes, that's fair, I'm sure ADAM LE FONDRE will give eloquent, inspired and intelligent feedback. It seems his inter team is dominating Italian football - well that was fucking invaluable, well done, you've transformed the game, and what a lot of time you have to play, spending the first 80 minutes of every actual match you're professionally invited to turn up for on the bench, the rest of the week that doesn't encompass those 11 minutes I'm sure has given you plenty of time to become an intelligent and able video-game critic, or maybe this is a cheap marketing ploy by FM - giving the game to people with plenty of fucking Twitter followers so they can spread the word. It's not that, it's not that because they've got PONTUS WERNBLOOM testing it - PONTUS WERNBLOOM gets the game FOR FREE on account of his being PONTUS WERNBLOOM, if only I'd known in advance I'd have become PONTUS WERNBLOOM instead of being the competent and productive member of society I basically am. And who else is on this elite list of persons given privileged access to the game in exchange for 'EXPERT' (MASSIVE INVERTED COMMAS) feedback - well from the evidence I can gather there's Watford 'star' BERNARD MENSAH, who is slightly more anonymous than my left bollock. Then they've drafted in the discerning insight of some guy from Reverend and the Makers, congratulations you're in a shit band, have a free copy of our game. Because they ARE going to provide insights, being industry insiders and industry experts and not just quite famous people who may have expressed an interest. It's not about that. They DEFINITELY WERE NOT asked to promote the game via Twitter, it's pure coincidence that they just have happened to do EXACTLY THAT. Shit bands are notoriously who Apple go to when testing new phones, and of course when a new car comes out it's only after it's been rigorously tested by the fucking drummer from fucking Muse. It's true, who else but shit bands is there to give 'INVALUABLE FEEDBACK' (actual quote) about the game - not the people who play it, not the fans of the game, nah, it's bands, it's definitely bands, it's always bands, you've got to run it past the sort of discerning sort of person who would spend their life trying to make something that someone somewhere someday might actually describe as being 'almost music'. I mean when someone is drafting up a new policy initiative the first thing they fucking do is give fucking Marilyn fucking Manson a quick call. I want to make it clear, early access was NOT granted so that word would be spread to the sort of intolerable halfwits who use Twatter, it was NOT THAT, it was for the INSIGHTS, which I imagine weren't quite so dense as 'it's well good' or 'it's wicked cool' or 'why am I so shit on your game?' - they will have been eloquent and intelligent and insightful and useful, I mean who knows more about how to create an interactive video game than ADAM LE FONDRE and some guy from Crewe I've never even heard of? Seriously though, ALF does give a special and unique insight, I mean there isn't anyone else (probably) in the ENTIRE WORLD who can give you such a brilliant perspective of what it is like to be both redundant, slow-witted and so useful you're only ever the first name on the subs bench.
In short, go fuck yourself Football Manager, I'm not buying your fucking game. OH AND WHO IS THIS PROVIDING UNIQUE INSIGHT - WELL IT'S SHANE DUFFY - THANK GOODNESS FM will have the unique insight of someone who is both Irish and appallingly average at football, someone who has that unique combination of Irishness and footballing talent that is basically indistinguishable from that of the substitutes bench he is lucky to frequent. OOOOOO who else? Luke Wright, someone who is apparently a cricketer (APPARENTLY), who apparently provides 'GREAT FEEDBACK', well there you go. Not someone who loves the game, plays it like a full-time job, no this git - he plays Cricket, which is a sport, football is a sport, well there you go, WHY WOULDN'T YOU ASK HIM?!? Apparently PLAYING THE GAME isn't a qualification, being IN THE MEDIA (i.e. having the platform to spread word about the game) or being a sportsman (i.e. too stupid to do something actually worthwhile)...........
You know what.....
forget it........
Fuck you Miles Jacobson, fuck you Football Manager, and fuck you again Miles Jacobson.
P.S. Miles, if your dishwasher breaks ring the manufacturer, don't ring Elmo.

Let's Talk About Anything

Let's talk about how much we've missed football this weekend. Did any of us find ourselves watching Coventry vs Sheffield United on Sunday afternoon just so we could pretend Super Sunday was still broadcasting? If we did, then we wouldn't have been wanting for excitement and drama in a game that finished 3-2 to the 'home' side, propelling them up to 16th, with the Sky Blues having started with a 10 point deduction, all of which is very impressive for a team that doesn't even have its own stadium, and who manage to seemingly provide the best entertainment of anyone in the football league judging by the scorelines alone (FOUR 3-2s, one 4-4, one 5-4 and a 4-0). This is in contrast to United, who are sinking like a brick in a river. They've so far picked up FIVE points from ELEVEN games, they've just sacked the manager, and now they're losing to teams recently salvaged from administration. Though, to be fair, they're not doing much worse than Bristol City, who are a massive one point ahead of them having come down from the Championship last season, from the outside it's hard to see that Sean O'Driscoll has got much longer at Ashton Gate, though he has asked for patience from fans, promising that their slide down the leagues will have to stop at some stage. At the opposite end of the table, having dropped only FOUR points all season Leyton Orient continue to make light work of the third tier, although presumably having a small squad, no money and no marquee talents is unlikely to permit actual promotion there are, very much for the time being, reasons to be cheerful if you're one of the very small minority that doesn't think Brisbane Road is that one off Richard Street where the off-license is. Elsewhere in League One, Martin Allen has been given the push at Gillingham as thanks for taking them back to the third tier. The club were sharp to offer their 'deepest gratitude' to Allen,  saying the decision was made with 'great regret' - which is interesting because you usually 'regret' things that you feel remorse over,

The End of the Town

I'm not going to deny that it was better, but this was an under-strength MONTENEGRO team, MONTENEGRO is still a country of 600,000 people, the keeper was still Debrecen's no.2, their goalscorer still plays club football in SOUTH KOREA, and their star sub was an immobile Blackburn reject/footballing wardrobe. And yes, Andros Townsend was a 'brave' choice for Roy, but let's face it, his selection policy is based on form, not on a plan or philosophy, it's still haphazard, on the hoof, and Andros Townsend, for all that he offers, is still not world class. It was a nice goal, but just before MONTENEGRO scored he had the chance to cross for Welbeck, it was a simple ball to give Welbeck a tap-in, and it was a mess, he is mostly only any use with 15 yards of space around him, and he won't always get that, but he played quite well, but there is a reason he's been out on loan so much, and while he's worked hard at his game he is not an exceptional player, but he is impressive and deserves credit, and he does offer something nobody else in the England camp seems to have got, and yes he should be involved if and when England make it to Brazil, and actually, bizarrely, I am going to come down on the side of Andros Townsend and congratulate him for working hard and say that I like his movement, the way he uses a ball, his very impressive agility and movement, and whilst he might not be technically perfect he isn't so easy to keep in your pocket as Lennon, Walcott, Young etc, so I think he does have something to offer, and I think he should keep his place and I think Poland should watch out, not that they really give a shit what happens. Elsewhere, MICHAEL CARRICK should start against the Poles, because he is more dynamic and flexible than Lamps and Stevie G, that's not to say they aren't useful for Chelsea and Liverpool, they just don't fit the England system so brilliantly and it doesn't get the best out of them and I think it would get more from Carrick than it does from them. Mainly what I actually think is that right now Carrick is the better player, Gerrard and Lampard have had to adapt to having lost a yard of pace and while they've both done that pretty impressively they are up against someone who hasn't had to compromise his style and who is better at doing the things they've adapted to start doing. KYLE WALKER is no major loss, it's not much use most of the time having a defender who can't defend, it's like in baseball having a catcher who can't catch or it's like employing a statistical research analyst who can't analyse statistical research. Mind you, the alternatives are Phillip Jones, a utility lump who reminds me of Lennie Small, and Christopher Smalling, both of whom have been benched since Moyes took over and that hardly fills me with confidence. ELSEWHERE, for all that Sturridge offers you still have to deal with the ego, for instance when he did that shimmy into space and then attempted to chip a goalkeeper who wasn't out of his goal, there is still this selfish mentality and this excessive desire to prove how good he is, Andy Townsend described the attempted chip as the 'right idea', which it just absolutely wasn't, but then Andy Townsend himself is nothing more than a bad idea with a microphone. MONTENEGRO's worst decision in the game was to bring on Vukcevic right after they scored, and further to put him in centre-midfield, where the game proceeded to pass him by like the match was water, the occasion was a river, and he was a very small pebble. Beating a severely UNDER STRENGTH nation the size of Bristol is not a massive step forward, and ROY 'horlicks' HODGSON is still not the right man for the job, he still looks like having to get up every few months and manage England interrupts his daily routine of playing scrabble, watching Countdown and getting a sponge bath off the nurse. HOWEVER, we are past the point of change so Roy and Joe should stay at least until England's first knockout round defeat in Brazil next June, when he should be very adruptly replaced...

He should be replaced by Jamie Carragher and Gary Neville. Young football persons with opinions and ideas, people you can tell think about nothing besides football, they don't have hobbies or interests, if they did then they'd never have won any Champions League titles or F.A. Cups. They are more intelligent and vibrant and represent the new generation, they are iPods, Roy Hodgson is still a grammophone. To compare, Jurgen Klopp and Antonio Conte and Diego Simeone and Brendan Rogers and Paul Lambert are iPods and iPads and iPhones, and Roy Hodgson just isn't. Mind you, Roy was appointed by the F.A, an institution as modern and relevant as scurvy, an institution that failed magnificently to ever give Brian Clough the England job, so expect Roy's replacement to be a wicker basket or a rocking chair.

ELSEWHERE, Michael O'Neill's case for a new contract as Northern Ireland manager went from strength-to-strength as they restricted Azerbaijan to a narrow 2-0 win in Baku, O'Neill has controversially said that his side are progressing in 'small steps' - those are small steps forward followed by falling back down a mountain to join the Faroe Islands and Samoa as being the kinds of team that Lichtenstein and Azerbaijan see as points-fodder. The Republic, meanwhile, suffered a predictable defeat at the hands of Germany, Wales scored a narrow but meaningless win against the mighty Macedonia, so as was the case before tonight none of the other home nations will be joining Iran, South Korea and Switzerland in Brazil next June. Vincente Del Bosque, meanwhile, says Spain need more goals, because what do you get the manager who has everything, and Australia have sacked their coach after losing 6-0 against France, having last year lost 6-0 against Brazil, because somehow they didn't think it boded brilliantly well for the forthcoming World Cup. 

At club level the President of the Spanish leagues says people in the Spanish leagues fix matches, he is now presumably going to launch an investigation to work out why he isn't better at doing his own job. David Weir's shambolic reign of error at Brammall Lane is over, with the Scot having secured a legendary 1 win from 10 games, which makes David Weir as effective as a football manager as geese are effective as a form of light aircraft. Michael Tonge, meanwhile, is aiming for a top-6 place with Leeds, and I'm going to devote the rest of this post to devouring that suggestion...

First of all, the current Leeds keeper looks like he's got a pillow stuffed up his shirt. The defence is average and unremarkable and in some cases HIGHLY unreliable (in the case of brick-eating shelf-stacker Jason Pearce). The midfield is packed full of middling, AVERAGE, unremarkable, boring, slow, nothing players like Micky Tonge and Paul Beige, it's just an overabundance of nothing in particular. There's no wide PLAYERS, just none whatsoever, such a massive absence that fans will be looking back fondly at days when they could've fielded Lloyd Sam or 'man with a van' Andy Robinson. In attack there is nothing in particular to be offered by Noel Hunt or Luke Varney, and they're joined by Matt Smith, whose main talent is being quite tall. As for the youngsters, Leeds' first team boasts Alex Mowatt and Dom Poleon, another pair of average talents with small amounts of potential WHO SUPPLY none of the massive deficiencies of a terminally average squad. This heavily repeated belief that Leeds can challenge for the top 6, a belief being repeatedly alluded to in interviews by squad members and by the gaffer himself, is unhelpful, because it's unrealistic, and it suggests that everyone around the club is swathed in the same delusion, that this team doesn't play THE MOST UNINSPIRING, UNIMAGINATIVE FOOTBALL POSSIBLE, that it isn't the most dreary collection of players ever to grace the pitch at Elland Road, that it isn't exceptionally ordinary and void of exceptional talent. Watching Leeds is just watching a space where something good could've gone.

Crunchie time

Roy Hodgson is backing his England side to finally beat someone that isn't San Marino or Moldova in this qualification phase.That, incidentally, is an actual statistic, eight matches played, 4 draws against Ukraine, Poland and Montenegro plus 4 wins against Moldova & San Marino. Another statistic is England sitting in 17th place in the World rankings, sandwiched between footballing powerhouses Chile and Bosnia & Herzogovina, below the USA, Greece and Switzerland. The most worrying fact is the inability of a team managed by Roy Hodgson to beat middling international outfits like Poland, whose one star individual is offset against the distinct averageness of everyone else involved in the squad, or a team like Montenegro, whose population is approximately 1% of the size of England's, and then there's the mighty Ukraine, whose players almost exclusively play in the Ukrainian first division, although almost none of them turn out for the best team in it, which is entirely composed of Brazilians.

Watching England play at the moment does bring it home how poor a decision it was not to hire Harry Redknapp as manager. A manager who would play vibrant, attacking football with Theo Walcott, Dan Sturridge, Wayne Rooney, Danny Welbeck, Jack Wilshere etc etc, was passed over for a manager whose footballing style is slightly less interesting than being circumcised against your will. What you get from Hodgson is a team as bland as his face, you get someone who will manage a team containing Lampard, Rooney and Wilshere like he's still managing Simon Davies and Bobby Zamora back at Craven Cottage. At least with Redknapp we'd lose in style. But heck, when Roy fails to steer England through these last two challenges maybe the current QPR boss would be willing to trade posts.  

On the question of Adnan Januzaj, Arsenal midfielder Jack Wilshere has quite strong views, saying that if he went and played in Spain he wouldn't play for Spain, which of course he wouldn't because he already plays for England. Jack has said that the only people who should play for England are English people, but what Jack hasn't explained is what makes an English person an English person, what if someone is born in England but then moves abroad (like Simone Perotta, who played for Italy without Jack raising any objections)? What if someone is born abroad to English parents (like Michael Chopra), is raised speaking English and moves to live in England? What if someone is born in England but educated outside of England (like Ryan Shawcross)? Is Ryan Shawcross Welsh because he is eligible to play for Wales or because he went to school there? Or is he English because he self-identifies as English? When does an English person become an English person Jack? If I wasn't born here but held a passport and self-identified as English, would that make me English? I don't fucking know if it would, I'd have to go and ask the new Home Secretary Theresa Wilshere. 

Jack goes on to say “We have to remember what we are, we are English and we tackle hard and we are tough on the pitch and we are hard to beat. We have great characters. You think of Spain and they are technical, but you think of England and you think they are brave and they tackle hard.” I agree, I agree so much I don't know where to begin agreeing. England 'has great characters' I mean except for the likes of Gareth Barry, Phil Jagielka, and the manager Roy 'wet blanket' Hodgson that is definitely absolutely universally TRUE, and England has brave players like Scott Parker, Ashley Young and Theo Walcott, and they are hard to beat (unless you're a half-decent footballing nation), and England do tackle hard (except for when they don't). Well said Jack mate, now why don't you have a cigarette on me.  

Renowned brainbox Alan Shearer is in Jack's corner here too - he thinks that to play for England you should have to be born in England, though he never objected to Owen Hargreaves, Wilfred Zaha, Terry Butcher or John Barnes, I'm sure he would have, if someone had asked him. Thank fuck they didn't. 

It's not as if Jack Wilshere would just be rattling off an easy phrase without really thinking about what it means to be of a certain nationality. Jack Wilshere, I happen to know, is a very deep philosophical young man. He will have thought through exactly what it takes to be English, what it means to be English, he won't just be borrowing tired, easy patriotic stereotypes and manipulating them into speech with all the rhetorical skill of a bucket of dead shellfish. That is absolutely not what Jack Wilshere would do. FYI - I actually used to like him, as a player.

Wayne Rooney has come out and PROMISED "We're going to do it. We are going to get to the World Cup" - which leads me to propose the following tentative prediction - England won't qualify automatically. It's an evidence based prediction rather than a gut feeling. The evidence is that England have won 4 games at home & away against Moldova and San Marino, they have drawn against everyone who wasnt one of these two eternal no-hopers. So the evidence would therefore suggest that England will fail to win their remaining qualifiers given that they are being played against teams who can actually field professional footballers rather than semi-professional fish-mongers.

But what of England's final opponents. Well, first there is Montenegro, with their population which is significantly smaller than Birmingham (imagine if England could only pick from Gabby Agbonlahor, Micah Richards and Richard Hammond), they will be featuring star players drawn from the likes of Tom Tomsk, FC Seoul, Amkar Perm, Kuban Krasnodar, Kayserispor, Gaziantepspor, Spartak Nalchik and Anorthosis Famagusta. Manager Branko Brnovic is a veteran of 100 league appearances for Buducnost, in an illustrious career that also took in Partizan Belgrade and FC Kom. Expect 10 men behind the ball against the tough, quick, aggressive Montenegrin attack. Poland, meanwhile, offer the opportunity for making insensitive World War II jokes. Let's see if they can cope with Roy's British Expeditionary Force and their uniquely un-blitzy take on blitzkreig, which involves keeping shape and playing a patient passing game. That'll have them on the run.

Putting Group H to one side there are the other home nations - the Scottish Express runs the headline 'Gordon Strachan will get us back among the elite' - yes BACK among the elite, that is the elite of Norway, Iceland and Slovenia, I can only assume. Mansfield-born Kris Commons has opened the door to an international return for Scotland, though NOT IF JACK WILSHERE HAS ANYTHING TO SAY ABOUT IT (which he fucking might). Craig Bellamy has refused to rule out becoming the next Wales manager following his international retirement, he has also refused to rule out becoming the next Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, and a judge in the 2014 Miss India pageant. The Welsh squad meanwhile has been severely depleted by injury, they've lost TEN players ahead of their final two qualifiers, two crucial games which could make all the difference in the race to still not qualify anyway. Michael O'Neill has challenged his Northern Ireland team to end their campaign on a high by maybe not actually losing Azerbaijan or Israel. O'Neill himself is chasing a new contract, and he has the unique bargaining point of having guided a team of basically professional footballers to defeat against the mighty Luxembourg. He will get that extension, unless that kid that won 10 titles with Crawley Town on Football Manager makes himself available to take over after he finishes his GCSE's. Richard Dunne and Andy Reid's call-ups will add some very serious weight to the Republic of Ireland effort, as they face two games which count for much less than nothing.

The Good, the Bad and the Defensively Inept

The first goal of the sure to be memorable Steve McClown era at Pride Park involved Derby stringing together an impressive sequence of two simple passes, outwitting three Leeds United defenders in the process, all of whom were drawn to the ball as if it was a secret to eternal handsomeness, leaving Chris Martin in 3 years of space, with Alex Mowatt reliably trotting back from midfield and the left-back so far out in the wilderness he's now Missing presumed Incompetent. What was exposed by Derby was, first of all, Jason Pearce's severe lack of positional awareness and his complete inability to manage a simple defensive situation. What was further exposed was a lack of confidence, as well as a total lack of viable talent in a squad which, apart from being weak at the back, is also weak in the middle, weak up-front and non-existent out wide. Brian McDermott, meanwhile, bemoaned Leeds' lack of a winning mentality, which was a subtle way of expressing his regret at ever having accepted the job of managing a squad containing a group of players who are so appallingly average you couldn't offload them at a car-boot sale.

Tune in after the international break when Ross McCormack F.C. will be failing to break a funk that has seen them lose 6 out of their last 7 with a home game against Birmingham City, who on Saturday became the first team to lose against Dougie Freedman's previously abysmal Bolton Wanderers team. One observer asked, of Leeds, whether the McDermott honeymoon was over. The honeymoon is usually over when the bride's been sold to Norwich, and the husband is crying himself to sleep. McDermott can be thankful his side already have 14 points, because that at least means they won't be getting relegated, at least not unless Sheffield Wednesday, Barnsley and Yeovil suddenly stop being the kinds of team for whom it is a massive show of resilience, strength and character to turn up.

That's not to say excitement isn't to be had elsewhere. The FFP rules seem to be Championshipifying the Premier League. Although it will probably settle down eventually, it won't become predictable because of all the new fun variables - Man Utd are no longer predictable now that they've become not good to the point of having to rely on children with strange names to salvage away wins against the worst team in the league, Man City are erratic under their new manager, who is himself an interesting addition, Jose Mourinho's Chelsea are only really being Jose Mourinho's in spells so you can never really tell when they're suddenly going to become Felipe Scolari's Chelsea or Avram Grant's, Liverpool are also unpredictable, take Jordan Henderson for instance, who is so unpredictable even he doesn't know what he's going to do next, and Spurs have many many decent players but a manager who seems to sometimes do odd things with them. There's also all the new players making the squads look all different, with the exception of United where a new manager is making the old squad look all different. The only predictable thing is Arsenal, who will finish 4th.

Highlights from the weekend included dodgy penalty decisions, brilliant goals, odd behaviour and the look on Kevin Ball's face when he realised he wasn't going to get the Sunderland job full-time. MOTD was a predictably tedious vessel for goals and highlights, as Alan Shearer settled for blandly narrating visual images, Roy Hodgson pointed out that Adnan Januzaj is good at football, and Gary Crisps tried to find space in the show to ask something that could almost be construed as an interesting question. Still, it beats that ridiculous thing they've got on Sky, where you get to watch all the lovely extended highlights, featuring all those juicy mishit crosses, badly timed through balls and long throw-ins that didn't come to anything.

Jose Mourinho, meanwhile, has backed himself, promising that when he makes a tactical decision it is the right decision and if it doesn't work then it's not his fault. Pep Guardiola, on the other hand, looked nice in a hat, in what was an intense weekend for their personal rivalry, as Chelsea made hard work of Norwich, Pep made hard work of pretending to be German at Oktoberfest.

Mob-fixer and occasional football manager Gus 'fingers' Poyet has returned to the football management game with Sunderland appointing him as their new head coach, with the brief of really trying his very very hardest to help them maybe possibly not actually get relegated. Failing that, beating Newcastle will do.

Elsewhere, United are offering Adnan Januzaj 60 grand a week, and so impressive were the only 2 goals the youngster has professionally scored, Roy Hodgson is now considering bringing him into the England set-up, despite the fact he can't, which is a real testament to the level of overreaction surrounding someone who hasn't yet played 300 minutes of Premier League football. Expect to find out very soon that Adnan has been made King of the Universe, and Associate Professor in Evolutionary Biology at the University of Exeter because he scored a brace in the Capital One Cup.

Jonny Howson has promised that Norwich City will learn from their defeat to Mourinho's Chelsea, quite what they will learn is a matter of debate. They may learn not to put Eden Hazard through on goal, so that next time Chelsea visit Carrow Road they DON'T put Eden Hazard clean through on goal. Perhaps they'll learn how not to spend all their money on a Dutch striker who gets in fewer goalscoring positions than Crash Bandicoot.

Gareth Barry, who has found a new lease of life at Everton, has not given up hope of an England recall. Elsewhere, Doncaster have not given up hope of winning the Champions League, the Cape Verde Islands have not given up hope of winning the World Cup and Elvis has not given up hope of being bought back to life. Leroy Fer hopes an impressive debut season at Norwich will end with him earning a place in the Dutch national squad for the World Cup, and it might, if someone first tells Louis Van Gaal what a Norwich is and that a Leroy Fer isn't actually a close friend of the Cheshire Cat. James Milner has said he is dreading the thought of having to watch the World Cup on television, and to be fair he won't have to watch it on TV, he can just switch the TV off and maybe go to the gym.

We'll end with a quick discussion on bringing the keeper up - there comes a  point in every game when a team is narrowly losing when they will win a corner and they will send for the man in the gloves who has to run the length of the pitch to get there. My point is that there is no point if you have to leave a defender back anyway, just bring the defender, the one more likely to be useful in heading the ball or shooting if it comes to it, you send him forward and bring the keeper to halfway so he's halfway back if the opposition counters. Keiran Westwood at the weekend flopped at that corner like a confused hostage jumping out of a window. It has become the default protocol for added time, and yet it is never ever necessary.

The real loser here is football

Chelsea, Leeds and Oxford United LEGEND Michael Wayne Duberry has hung up his not inconsiderable boots after failing to find a new club following his not remotely controversial release by Oxford United last Summer. Duberry enriched the quality of 413 league games during his time playing with Chelsea, Bournemouth, Leeds United, Stoke City, Reading, Wycombe, St. Johnstone, Oxford United and Hendon. He will be fondly remembered by everyone for some of the running about that he did, and how he would often turn up for games when invited to do so. His punctuality, his robust physique, his occasionally not-mistimed tackles and his baldness were a credit to the sport. In honour of Dube we will now have two lines of mourning...
Mourning Mourning Mourning Mourning Mourning Mourning Mourning Mourning Mourning Mourning Mourning Mourning Mourning Mourning Mourning Mourning Mourning Mourning

Elsewhere, Joe Hart has the full backing of Roy Hodgson, the grumpy old retired gentleman who manages the English national football team. Hodgson's backing comes in spite of the keepers erratic form, with Hart making mistake after mistake after mistake after mistake after mistake with very little in-between redeeming his status as no1. What more does Fraser Forster have to do get a look-in? Should he re-tile Hodgson's patio? Seriously, time and again Forster performs in big games whereas time and again Joe Hart fails to perform in any. This is a guy who keeps goal behind Vincent Kompany, as opposed to Iffy Ambrose and Charlie Mulgwho?, what's obvious is Hart's confidence seems to have been brutally murdered, rolled up in a carpet and thrown in a river. Then again I suppose looking for fresh ideas in Roy Hodgson's brain requires the building of a time machine to take you back to his heyday as manager of the Old Carthusians in their great cup run of 1881. We are talking about changing the mind of someone who personally shook the hand of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, someone who is basically a VCR manager in world football. Where Spain, Germany and Italy have blackberries, ipads and blu-rays, England have a battered 8-track.

In his defence Hodgson knows he can't change keepers now, not so close to the final 2 qualifies, but it has to be under consideration going forward, at least to get Forster more involved, to get him on the pitch, if only to make the dull and repetitive friendlies that clog up the international calendar move a step closer to at least pretending like they might mean something, rather than being a chance to waste Leon Osman's legs on a stage he'll never grace again.

Captain battered 8-track will, incidentally, be playing the same old tired tunes very appropriately on Match of the Day this weekend, when he will sit opposite Gary Lineker and assert that he believes England have a couple of tough games coming up but that, controversially, he would like it if England qualified for the World Cup. He'll be asked about Tom Huddlestone and he'll agree that the grossly overweight Hull midfielder has done well so far, and then he'll go back to doing his 30-day a year job with all the competency of an eel playing the piano.

Owen Coyle, meanwhile, is backing Scott Carson to get a return to the England squad after his 'heroics' in their home win over NK Maribor, the footballing equivalent of a broken tractor covered in grain. Coyle said "Scott Carson was an England keeper not by accident", although I would propose an alternative explanation 'Scott Carson was an England keeper completely by accident' - I can explain how as well. A press campaign backing the concept of an English manager for England was misguided because it led to the ginormous accident that was current Derby County head coach Steve McClown being handed the national team job, that massive accident had the repercussion of Scott Carson being selected as England goalkeeper. Ergo, Carson was an England keeper not not by accident. Even if you don't believe that, and admittedly it's quite difficult to because it's total nonsense, we can all agree that Scott Carson's England performances were about as positively received as tuberculosis.

It is also worth pointing out that if Hodgson did want to replace Hart in goal then he has Fraser Forster, proven against top opposition, or John Ruddy, who actually plays in the Barclays Premier League. Still, this is Roy we're talking about, so expect his second and third choices to be Gordon Banks, Bert Trautmann or Henry VII.

Daryl Duffy, former Cheltenham forward now plying his trade in the top-standard Indian Premier League, has spoken to the BBC of his shock at his new surroundings, saying that having played for Falkirk, Cheltenham and Bristol Rovers he has "known nothing but first class till now". Okay Daryl, if you say so. The closest Cheltenham have ever come to first class was when one of their players got upgraded on the train journey down to Torquay for a cup game in 1997.

Ally McCoist has taken a wage cut at Rangers, he has lost close to half his ludicrously high income to help Rangers through their current financial difficulties. His former salary, of over £800,000, has been cut down severely after somebody realised that having a wage bill of several million pounds in a division which plays something that isn't even glorified pub football actually means you can win without a high-priced manager, or even a manager, the team could be managed by a desk or an upturned bucket and it still wouldn't lose to Stranraer, Arbroath or Stenhousemuir.

David Moyes has said he is learning as he goes at Manchester United, he is presumably learning how to come up with some almost quite plausible excuses for why his team sucks so heavily. Pepe Reina has 'opened the door' to a Summer move to Barca, whether Barca will come along and close that door remains to be seen, but Valdes didn't do himself any favours at Celtic Park by looking bemused by the arrival into his penalty area of crosses (although he may simply have been confused by the vision of Jesus Samaras, our lord and saviour, wandering into an offside position down the left). Jose Mourinho has pointed out that playing for Everton is different to playing for Chelsea, which it is, you just assume that playing for a better club a striker might get more chances to score goals and therefore might score more goals, although Demba Ba...so maybe not.

Martin Keown, meanwhile, has controversially asserted that he 'believes' Joe Hart is Man City's number 1 - let's examine the back of his shirt...oh yes, he is. Let's examine the alternatives City have...Dracula, and Richard Wright...yeah, maybe he is number 1...maybe. Well fucking done Martin you cretinous shithead. These 'opinions' of Martin's were produced in the company of blonde bombshite Robbie Sewage and Captain Beige Dan Wanker on a radio 5live discussion programme so lacking in opinion, insight and intelligent conversation it might as well have been a conversation being held between a pack of wild trees. 

Elsewhere, the race for the Market Drayton Town job is really hotting up with ex-Hammers bruiser Julian Dicks and ex-Rover Timothy Flowers throwing their names into the very small, tatty ring. Apparently their interest has been expressed through agents, who are presumably actually just Dicks doing a silly voice and Flowers' uncle Bob, rather than actual agents. The Northern Premier League Division One South club certainly have their work cut out choosing between a mouldy apple and a sack of potatoes, they may well also ask for input from their star player, who is in fact PASCAL CHIMBONDA. No seriously, it is. At least Wikipedia says it is. Wikipedia also thinks Stuart Pearce is secretly a lizard.

Jack Wilshere has controversially been spotted smoking outside a nightclub after the Napoli game in midweek. This is, to be fair, one of the less controversial things a footballer could be found doing outside a nightclub. He wasn't in the company of a prostitute, and he wasn't beating a schoolboy to death. Credit to Jack for avoiding the default footballer-outside-nightclub controversies.

Sheffield Wednesday striker Gary Madine, meanwhile, has put an interesting new twist on the footballer convicted of assault, after he assaulted two fans INSIDE a nightclub and will now serve an 18-month prison sentence. The first fan, it turned out, was a Wednesday supporter who paid Madine the horrific tribute of looking at him, sending psycho Gary into a catastrophic rage which ended with him breaking the fans nose. In the second case soon-to-be mental health patient Gary asked the fan who he supported, and upon discovering it was United, he calmly and reasonably broke his jaw. This greaviously provoked violence may well cause irreparable damage to a football career with a trajectory which, in any case, was mostly plummeting like an aircraft whose engines had just fallen off. The question for Wednesday now is how they'll cope without his tremendous input of 4 goals a season. Expect them to announce shortly that they're replacing the psychotic mans nutcase in the team with some lawn furniture.

Stephane Sessegnon has elected to follow the path less travelled by, as he has collected a 20-month suspension for driving and drinking. As well as being at twice the legal limit, Sessegnon was found to be unlicensed and the car was found to be uninsured, the incident also occurred while his then team Sunderland were busy playing a football match, which explains entirely why Sessegnon was racing drunk through Newcastle. In Sessegnon's defence he avoided falling into the same trap as Lee Hughes or Patrick Kluivert, he didn't actually kill anyone. There you go, well done Steph (or in actual fact well done to Northumbria police for mobilizing units and stopping him before he hit any one or thing).

A tuesDay of Celebration

Sky really put BT Sport in their place once again this weekend with another Sunday cracker in the form of Stoke against Norwich, a game which moved at a slower pace than Emile Heskey weighed down by shopping. Moments of quality were so rare at the Brittania that if you blinked at all during the game you would've missed every single one of them. Another feather in Sky's massive gold-plated cap is Saturday Afternoon Football, which has the brilliant concept of getting men and women into a studio to observe the punditry as it happens live, whilst simultaneously offering them no tangible benefit for doing so, that's to say nothing of letting Niall Quinn do commentary, someone for whom getting a sentence out coherently is fucking Everest.

Martin Jol has urged for calm from his seriously miffed Fulham supporters, whose ire over their late defeat to Cardiff almost threatened to flow over into some rather rude chanting and shouts of 'yes, well, really it's just not on' and 'you aren't doing your job very well, I'm going to write a strongly worded letter to someone or other if it continues'. Thankfully, for Martin, urging Fulham supporters to calm is like urging a chair to continue being a chair.

Umbrella wielding Dutchman, Steve McClown, is the new manager of Derby County, ending his spell as Harry Redknapp's luxury kitman at QPR . McClown may be heavily mocked in this country, but Steve started out well at Boro and had some success abroad, notably in his native Holland, people will however insist on focusing upon his persistent and glaring failures, it's hardly Steve McClown's fault that that untried goalie he suddenly threw into the team against Croatia repeatedly screwed up, or that the team had no interest in playing for him, or that I've met better candidates for a Championship managerial post at a meeting of the blind-deaf schizophrenics society.

Leroy Rosenior, meanwhile, was flabbergasted that after 4 years of making no tangible progress, Nigel Clough was given the push. Rosenior used the Football League show as a platform from which to suggest Clough hadn't been given enough time, he also went on to say that only time would tell whether this 'inter-net' phenomenon would really catch on.

Meanwhile, Leeds United, owned by the only investors from the Middle East with no money, whose transfer policy of selling good players and replacing them with Luke Varney and Noel Hunt has seen them most recently subjected to a surprisingly non-violent defeat against Milwall, are poised for a return to the transfer market. Brian McDermott's hopeless band of rejects, misfits and Luke Varneys are hoping to reinforce to the tune of someone who has attacking quality but isn't just Rossy McCormack doing it all on his own. A deal to get Luciano Becchio back has already been shot down, so expect Leeds to continue to aim way too high and end up with no-one, who are they going after next? Serge Gnabry? The same Serge Gnabry who started and scored for ARSENAL at the weekend? Yes it is him, but Brian, did you not manage to bag him? Well, never mind, I'm sure you can still tempt Wayne Rooney or maybe you could just persuade God himself to lace up his boots (it's probably just worth asking him since Macca will probably already be down on his knees praying for a miracle anyway).

This weeks' Match of the Day 3 (for those who miraculously didn't get enough from 1 & 2) has scented bin-liner Mark Chapman discussing massive if's with a pair of multi-ethnic crash test dummies named Jason Roberts and Peter Schmeichel. It was a conversation which was itself loaded with ifs - what if they tried to be entertaining? What if the BBC hadn't sacked its one mildly interesting presenter and replaced him with Mr Cardboard? What if they bought on pundits with considered opinions and witty rhetorical styles? What if they tried, just for one week maybe, to be less abysmally dull?

On Sunday afternoon Dan Sturridge and Luis Suarez teamed up to destroy Sunderland's rock-solid and reliable defence of Carlos Cuellar and John O'Shit. Their 'shining' display was a bright spot on an otherwise bleak weekend for Liverpool fans who by and large, after the game, still had to go back to the city where they regrettably continue to live. Steven Gerrard, meanwhile, later revealed that he was sure Suarez was going to leave in the Summer, thankfully for Anthony Gerrard's less incompetent cousin nobody apart from Arsenal really seemed that interested in signing a racist cannibal.
 

Joey Barton is hoping to follow in the footsteps of ACTUAL ROCKET SCIENTIST Iain Dowie, who gave up a job working with British Aerospace to move to LUTON TOWN (doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that's a step down in the world), by taking a degree. Barton, who probably does seem like the cleverest man in a side managed by fruit & veg market trader Harry Redknapp and his colleague Shaun 'I can't even spell -' Wright-Phillips, may be surprised to find out that some of his fellow students have, for instance, read books, although this is Roehampton University so they were probably only the Hunger Games, Harry Potter and Twilight. Barton has signed up to study Philosophy, maybe he could end up revising his own philosophy on life, and become less of a dickhead. Still, genuine credit to the dopey haired twit for not just living in a massive house with his feet up playing video games, and credit to both him and Dowie for providing evidence that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, no matter how tatty and seemingly illiterate that cover may be.
Carlo Ancelotti has said that he thinks his Madrid team plays too slow, other adjectives he might've chosen would be 'shit', 'rubbish' or 'abysmal'.

Shinji Kagawa has stated publically that he 'must try harder' in his efforts to persuade David Moyes to permit him to board his sinking ship. The Japanese midfielder was pulled off at half-time in the match against West Brom, an act which David Moyes has described as inappropriate and something that really shouldn't happen in a professional dressing room.

Mr Pantomime and professional 'man not of the bottle' Jose Mourinho walked out of a press conference ahead of his sides midweek Champions League game, apparently the Chelsea boss was frustrated by questions about the eggs he chose to play with at the weekend, with the press seeming more interested in asking why he wasn't selecting certain eggs instead of sitting around telling him how good his omelettes are. Although, if you watch the footage he did look quite a lot like a man who was trying to wrap it up quick because he'd forgotten it was his turn to pick up the kids.

Paulo Di Canio has insisted he did not row with senior Sunderland players prior to leaving the club, a claim which seems quite difficult to believe considering yesterday afternoon Paulo Di Canio was caught having a row with the milkman, the postman, the fridge, the cat, the garden shed, his Volvo, a pair of nike trainers and a large-print copy of the New Testament. In fact the arguing mans squabbler went on to suggest that many of the players have texted to thanked him in the wake of his sacking for improving them as footballers, although he insisted nobody could see these texts unless they were wearing his special magic glasses, the same magic glasses through which he watched every match they played and then didn't go home and hang himself. 

Jack Collison has moved on loan to Bournemouth and may feature in their away game at Elland Road tonight, not that they need someone of his considerable talent to overturn their hosts, all they need for that is probably 7 players, not necessarily all of them professionals or even necessarily sober, and a very small obstacle to put in front of Noel Hunt in order to stifle the not at all considerable talents of Captain Appropriate Rhyming Slang.

The FA have cleared Torres of improper conduct after he lightly stroked the side of Jan Vertonghen's, pointing out that because one of the match officials saw the incident, they CANNOT TAKE ACTION, that is CANNOT TAKE ACTION under the LAWS of their institution, irate Liverpool fans have taken to the internet (wonder where they're stealing that from) to complain in consideration of the severity of Suarez's biting ban in comparison, that was a ban given for Luis Suarez BITING an opponent, with his teeth, mitigating circumstances are hard to conjure in such a case. Perhaps Luis Suarez confused Branislav Ivanovic with a large juicy steak and in a fit of excitement attempted to tuck in without waiting for a knife and fork. The difference between the cases, and I'm going to make this as clear as possible, is that the FA COULD TAKE ACTION against Luis Suarez AND DID, the FA COULD NOT TAKE ACTION against Fernando Torres AND DIDN'T, the FA were just acting within the laws by which they operate, and I could very easily make a joke about law-abidingness and the DNA of the Scouser, but I'm not going to because I enjoy owning a car with its wheels completely attached.

The BBC went straight ahead and asked people what they thought. Of course, it doesn't fucking matter, just like it didn't matter what people thought at the weekend when they were controversially asked who would finish higher out of the two Manchester clubs, or yesterday when they asked their severely mentally disabled followers who they thought was the best loan signing ever. As for the sort of people who contribute on demand to the BBC's 'get involved' programme of asking the mentally ill what they think about footballing issues, evidence of being such a person will soon be admissible in court as evidence of severe mental incapacity.

I'm leaving it fucking there for now because it's just going to more of the same...

Now that's what i call Saturday volume 8375

Rickie Lambert sensationally revealed in his post-match interview that it feels good to be part of a team which is near the top of the table, Manuel Pellegrini sensationally revealed he wasn't happy when his team lost at football, Michael Laudrup made the controversial claim that his team may have lost because they conceded more goals than they scored, Aaron Ramsey astonishingly announced that it was 'nice to get on the scoresheet', David Moyes has unearthed a complicated problem with his sides performance; namely that they 'didn't attack well at times', Saido Berahino surprised everyone by announcing that it was 'great' to score at Old Trafford, and finally Steve Bruce has said that until you see things it is often hard to know what they are.


Arsenal now lead the Premier Division table ahead of Spurs and Chelsea, who did them the favour of not beating each other. Southampton are in the top 4 by virtue of something, although I don't know what it is I'm basically sure it was someone else's fault. Fulham are in the relegation zone by virtue of an exciting mixture of bad players and mismanagement, but that should all change once their lucky talisman, the Michael Jackson statue, is replaced by the one they've commissioned of Freddy Mercury. Crystal Palace are one place below them in 19th by virtue of owning the players that they own and have done themselves no favours by being the current holders of the 'they shouldn't even be there in the first place' award. Manchester United, meanwhile, are currently the filling of a Welsh sandwich, sitting in 12th between Cardiff, who have Mutch to thank Jordan for, and Swansea.

Nigel Clough is out of a job, begging an obvious question - namely, if you're going to sack him now why not sack him at any other point in the last 4 years when he's been doing basically the same inconsistent thing? Anyway 4 years of win 1, lose 1 football at Pride Park has finally come to an end, Nigel can now look forward to joining Alan Curbishley on the list of managers who nobody seems to want to hire.
 
David Moyes, in what was an undeniably erotically charged and provocative post-match interview, stated that 'you are always going to get bad results in football' before going on to say that is important 'how you deal with them' and so far he has dealt with his bad results by piling more on top of them. He presumably thinks that if he piles up enough negatives they will eventually congeal into a positive (although it may not be a positive for him but for the club generally, the positive being that after months of negative achievement Moyes is sacked).


Jose Mourinho has expressed his enragement with Spurs' Jan Vertonghen after the Belgian almost dirtied Fernando Torres' fingernails when the Spaniard attempted to rip his face off with them. He has further expressed the opinion that his team would've gone on to win had it not been for an admittedly shit yellow card decision handed to Nando for a challenge so lacking in malice it could easily have been a misunderstood hug.

Leeds and Milwall managed to produce a game in which nobody died, no legs were broken, no bottles were smashed over anybody's head and nobody said anything reported in the media as having been severely racist, for this the football league are presumably going to give them a big award saying 'well done for not killing each other'.

In Spanish soccerball Gareth Bale made absolutely no impact as part of a Real Madrid team that made absolutely no impact on a game they thoroughly deserved to lose against rivals Atletico. Elsewhere Barca went on breaking records, now having won 7 in a row since the start of the season, winning 2-0 against something called Almeria.

Ian Holloway has said he is 'annoyed' by the dive which got Marouane Chamakh booked against Southampton, he is presumably 'annoyed' that it wasn't a better dive or else it might've actually won a penalty. He might've also have been 'annoyed' that his striker showed about as much confidence in front of goal as a cat would show faced with the inside of a wood-chipper. Or else maybe he was just 'annoyed' to realise that he actually owned the dodgy haired Morroccan.

The BBC Sport website is asking the question 'What's Inside a Footballers Contract?' - I'm predicting a combination of words and numbers. Elsewhere on the Beeb, Lineker spiced up MOTD by asking fans to vote for whether they thought United or City would finish higher in the league, a vote which occasioned no further discussion and served no plausible purpose.

Underfire Fulham boss Martin Jol has called for calm from the clubs fans, who expressed their frustration at the teams early season form by tutting loudly and throwing their Guardian wallcharts onto the pitch. There are concerns that if the poor form continues then attendances could drop, affecting the clubs finances and sales at the Craven Cottage half-time deli counter.

Liverpool's child dizzy on lemonade, Jordan Henderson, has backed Kevin Ball to take the Sunderland job on full-time. He has also given his weighty and meaningful support to Angela Merkel's re-election as German chancellor and to the Social Democrat party in the upcoming Austrian elections.

Robbie Fowler was made to apologise after suggesting on Final Score that Vertonghen and Torres were 'fighting like girls', presumably he would rather Nando had behaved like the typical footballer outside a nightclub and beaten the Belgian half to death. The BBC was flooded by complaints, and the comments caused a degree of controversy, one commenter on the Mirror website suggested that Fowler being made to apologise was 'All thats wrong with this once great country' - I'm now going to track down 'Da Mo' and introduce him to George Osbourne, David Cameron and the north.

Charlotte Green, the person who reads the scores on 5Live, managed to do her highly challenging job without massively fucking anything up. Her exceptional achievement of reading words from a screen into a microphone really has set her apart from the rest of humanity. The 'experienced and reliable' broadcaster drew upon all of her experience and reliableness when she saw what some words were and then read them out in the order they were written. The performance itself was immediately described as flawless, an achievement that really stands out as one of the greats in the history of human endeavour. Green 'cruised through the classified scores with plenty of poise and little fuss', managing to avoid saying 'fuck', or making any seriously offensive remarks. She reached a dramatic finale, prefaced with the astonishing and unmissable improvised words 'and finally', words which really came home to me because that was the moment it was 'finally' fucking over and I thought I might've fucking heard the mother fucking last of it for fucks fucking sake. Green had always dreamed of one day following in the footsteps of James Alexander Somethingorother, and so it really does just show that if you dream small enough you can fulfil your ambitions. Green's story has filled me with hope that I may one day be able to replace my washer and dryer or perhaps even get a new fridge. This, incidentally, is the last time I am ever going to mention this story again because it is giving me a fucking aneurysm.

So it's like totally like the weekend like tomorrow, or whatever...

The BBC continues to treat the changing of the guard on their classified results broadcast as if it were actual news, which begins to make the soft-baked no-content approach they take to sport start to feel genuinely intolerable. It would be nice if, just for a little bit, they could be less awful and boring. Although that will involve sacking everyone they currently employ.

Since we're developing a theme of Beeb-bashing here, let's begin with the contentless low-drone that is officially listed on the schedule as 'Football Focus', a programme hosted by man in a personality vaccuum Dan 'captain boring' Walker. He is the first big problem, Walker has fewer opinions than a bucket of sand and seems to know slightly less about football than your average office chair, he also presents the show like he is a child hoping to one day become a big boy journalist, and he's also everywhere across BBC football coverage, with his uniquely boring and uninformed take on footballing developments, standing around asking inane questions while dressed like a window dummy in House of fucking Fraser. The second severe deficiency is in the content, or total lack thereof. I will now reproduce a typical FF interview, the interviewer is Garth Crooks (GC), the interviewee is Robin Van Persie (RVP) -

GC: hi Robin

RVP: hello

GC: Robin, you score lots of goals

RVP: yes

GC: are you planning to keep doing that?

RVP: yes
GC: do you remember playing for Arsenal?
RVP: yes
GC: what was that like?
RVP: sometimes good

GC: you have a match at the weekend...

RVP: yes

GC: do you think you will win?

RVP: i would like to win this match. It is important to win games.

GC: finally, is Wayne Rooney good?

RVP: yes
GC: and you like being in the same team as him?
RVP: yes

...beyond the content is the analysis, usually provided by the boring mans sewing machine Dion Dublin, or the boring mans carpet showroom Kevin Kilbane, or the BBC wildcard Robbie 'not very fucking' Savage. Let's, in fact, focus on Savage, who the BBC themselves describe as 'outspoken'. Not insightful or intelligent or even capable of semi-rational thought, but 'outspoken', just remember this is 'outspoken' by the standards of Captain Boring, Captain Sewing Machine and Captain Carpet Right. Tomorrow's lively and enthralling installment of Fifty Focusing Shades of Footballing Beige is being broadcast live from Hull and features an interview with Tom Huddlestone, or if that all sounds like too much fun then you could just throw some paint at a wall and spend an afternoon watching it dry.

Once the early afternoon Funball Focus is over and we reach Final Score, now presented by robotic Welshman Jason Somethingorother, who sits opposite a combination of Crooks, Claridge, Kilbane, Danny Murphy and Savage discussing, in the most inconsequential terms, things you arent able to watch happening. Whilst Soccer Saturday compensates with entertainers, Final Score compensates with the drivveliest drivvel. Where Le Tis and Thommo and Kammy provide humour, heated debate and enhancement of the dramatic aspects, the BBC team provide fewer frills than a sack of rubble.

Finally there is Match of the Day, which has in its favour the goals and highlights carefully selected from each game, the problem is in-between them, when Lineker and Friends set about 'discussing' the plainly bloody obvious and saying exactly what's already been said. The lack of freshness and insight on MOTD is just one of the reasons that BBC football coverage has become so detestably awful and intolerably dull, which is why I return to the plan I have already outlined for salvaging the programme, just fucking sack everyone.

Off the subject of the Beeb, AVB has publically announced that Jose Mourinho is not his friend, presumably he followed up the announcement by listing off other people who are not his friends - Queen Elizabeth, Frank Skinner, Ed Milliband, Nicholas Parsons etc. Jose has said that Tottenham are capable of winning the title themselves, although to be fair even Tottenham aren't actually saying that. Mourinho went on to further stoke the fires of a not particularly bitter feud by saying he doesn't care what AVB says, and he then presumably made a list of other people who say things he doesn't care about - Queen Elizabeth, Frank Skinner, Miranda Hart etc.

Robbie Savage turned his outspoken tongue (a tongue frequently outspoken by particularly eloquent mice) to Javier Hernandez, suggesting the Mexican with the nickname on the back of his shirt (what in fuck was wrong with his actual name? Does it have a silent 'fuck' at the beginning?) is being wasted at Manchester United. I would contend, quite rightly, that he is used as well as he could be used being that he is a player who offers nothing except goal poaching attributes. It is difficult to use a player who makes such a minimal contribution to overall play. Savage thinks Hfuckernandez should move clubs, though Savage's opinion is about as reliable as the sort of opinion a slow 4-year-old could give you about quantum fucking field theory.

Simon Mignolet has described team-mate Luis Suarez as a 'nice fella', a description he may have intended comparatively, he may have been saying that Suarez is a nicer fella than, for instance, Ian Huntley or Roy Keane. Mignolet is, presumably, putting forward the suggestion that we've all got the wrong end of the stick about the arm-chewing racist Uruguayan, and let's give him the benefit of the doubt, let's say he's not an arm-chewer (although he definitely is) or a massive racist (which is allegedly is), that doesn't stop him from being quite obviously (at least) a bit of a cunt.

Stan 'the man' Kroenke has, apparently, got his sights set on the title, whether that's the Premier division title or the Capital One LDV Vans Coca-Cola Littlewoods Shield is hard to say at this stage, though I would propose the latter to be a more realistic ambition for a team that is about as used to winning trophies as Wokingham Town.

So with the Andy Carroll gamble having back-fired to the tune of one injury that a blind polar bear could've seen coming Carlton Cole is set to be offered a short-term return to Upton Park, in the hope that he can supply the sort of firepower he never ever remotely offered the first time around. In another timely boost for Hammers boss Big Sam, Stewie Downing may be fit for their trip to Hull, which is a massive positive for a team that has been lacking in terms of mishit crosses and running done only ever in completely straight lines.

Rickie Lambert is of the belief that he can provide a 'different option' for the England squad and is desperate to play in Brazil. Putting aside his lack of goals in the EPL and the obvious comparisons with Grant 'I've finally gone back to playing in the football league' Holt's emergence at Norwich, it is hard to disagree with Lambert's suggestion that he offers something different because he definitely does, the England squad contains players like the pacey Theo Walcott and the skilful Jack Wilshere and the defensively solid Gary Cahill, what none of these players supplies is the sort of abject redundancy that Rickie can bring to the set up.

Sean Dyche is apparently now considered to be 'in the race' to become the next Sunderland manager. Whether the big fella can outrun Gus Poyet or Rene Meulensteen remains to be seen, but it's certainly an interesting option, opting for someone who certainly does know how to get a team of half-decent players in reach of the top 6 in the second tier, which is obviously what Sunderland will want once they've been relegated.

Good news for Arsene Wenger, as it seems Aaron Ramsey will be available for their game at the weekend, which will be a relief for the Gunners boss who might've feared he would be without his chief goal-getter and the next player in a line that has included Fabregas, Nasri and Van Persie to now become the driving force behind the Gunners and, from next season, the driving force behind a team that might actually win something - like United, Barcelona or City.

Not giving Patrice Evra any time to settle down after a Summer of indirectly telling him they didn't want him anymore, Moyes is now apparently chasing Madrid's Fabio Coentrao, though with his record in the transfer market since taking over expect Moyes to end up signing Phil Jagielka or Shane sodding Duffy or Marouane Fellaini again.

Sol Campbell has said that he thinks it is difficult to for black managers to get a chance in management in this country. I would say to him, just look at Paul Ince or Chris Hughton or....Chris Powell or....someone else....or Brian Deane, no wait, he had to go to Norway to establish himself in management....well maybe he has a point. 

A notable feud is reignited this weekend when Leeds United travel to Milwall in what may turn into a battle to see who has the nuttiest fans. Expect a lot of violence and a lot of aggression, and expect similar behaviour from the supporters. Do not expect good football, do expect something that tourists might mistake for a memorial reenactment of the Battle of the Somme, only with slightly more carnage and a lot more El-Hadji Diouf.

It's Not the Weekend Yet

Bleacher Report has today usefully listed 6 things we 'learned' from Le Toon's deux-nil win over mid-range Championship bore-specialists Leeds United. First of all we 'learned' that Sammy Ameobi has a 'big part to play this season', the evidence for this is a good cross he put in when he had more space to work with than the Voyager 1 space probe. Second of all we 'learned' that Paul Dummett can 'hold his own in the first team', any young full-back who can, when playing against a team with no wingers, manage to spend an entire game not fucking anything up must indeed be a special talent. Thirdly we 'learned' that Yoann Goufrann's confidence is 'on the rise', which it must be now that he's actually scored a goal, albeit a goal scored past Paddy 'I look like I ate a pregnant gorilla' Kenny. We also 'learned' that Leeds are a 'big miss' in the top flight because they have good fans (although the less said about the players the better), and we found out that Papiss Cisse 'still knows how to find the back of the net', we know this because he did it, and what a biting insight it was to point that out. Finally we discovered that Vernon Anita goes 'from strength-to-strength' when competing in midfield with a mediocre 18-year-old and Michael Tonge, whose heyday wasn't even particularly hey. Read the waste of vowels for yourself here - http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1787733-newcastle-united-vs-leeds-united-6-things-we-learned - or better still avoid the website altogether unless you happen to be a fan of non-insights, opinions that yearn to be half-baked and stories that are slightly less interesting than window sills.

And now Sheep's Foot will propose 6 things that we learned from the game - we learned that Ross McCormack can shoot quite well from long range if given plenty of space, Sammy Ameobi can deliver a pinpoint cross as long as it is done entirely by accident, Jason Pearce will get distracted from man marking duties by the presence of grass near or around his feet, when Paddy Kenny dives it will look like someone is throwing a mattress into a skip, Papiss Cisse will score 40 goals this season as long as nobody bothers marking him and the ball is kicked directly onto his head and finally if you're buying players it's better to buy French than to buy Paul Green. 

Peter Schmeichel has come out and said he is 'not confident' that Manchester United will be able to retain their Premier division crown. He has said he will be happy if they are 'there or thereabouts', and so long as 'there or thereabouts' extends to about 15 to 20 points away from whoever actually does win the league then there will be no reason for Kasper's daddy to be unbelievably disappointed.

Matt Le Tissier has come out and boldly tipped League One shelf-stacker Rickie Lambert to make it on the plane to Brazil. What England really need, if they even make it to the World Cup, is to have a target man forward who can link up with the skilful, creative Jack Wilshere, because they do link up really well, about as well as a moving bullet and a human skull.

Charlotte Green, who is a woman who talks on the radio, has the scarce distinction this week of being the person who, at about 5 o'clock on a Saturday, tells you that Doncaster have beaten Ipswich by 1 goal to no goals. She has admitted, ahead of the big debut, that she is feeling 'nervous' about having to read words from a page in a dull monotone. Further, she has regaled a BBC news team with an excellent anecdote about how she used to sit at the table when she was a child reading the scores, mimicking the style in which it is professionally done, and that her carryings on were to the annoyance of her demented lunatic of a sister who incomprehensibly found the whole ordeal 'boring'.

Mohammed Al-Fayed, professional conspiracy theorist and the worlds 1031st richest man has finally been reunited with his colour statue of pop legend Michael Jackson, much to the dismay of Fulham Football Club, who will surely not hesitate to recommission another statue, or perhaps a whole collection of statues showcasing pop through the fucking ages. Al-Fayed, meanwhile, having relinquished interest in Harrods and Fulham is now able to concentrate on accusing other people of things they obviously haven't done.

Lewis Holtby has made the bold suggestion that Tottenham can compete for four trophies, although it's not difficult to be quite sure that fans of the North London club would be very much happy enough if they just about bothered to try competing for one.

Fernando Torres has insisted that he is competition up front for Samuel Eto'o rather than being that massively overpaid baldy guy who looks like a washed up Fernando Torres and scores goals occasionally in cup competitions when he is playing european teams from countries with a GDP lower than his weekly wage or lower league teams who have transfer budgets smaller than the sum of money he got paid for that Samsung advert where he baked a cake.

Luis Suarez has pledged to 'try his best' for Liverpool. Whether he's promising to try his best not to bite anyone or say anything obviously racist or hand in a transfer request or take a massive shit in the corner of the pitch is not entirely clear at this stage.

Great Britain keeper Jack Butland has switched sunny Stoke for beautiful Barnsley in an emergency loan deal. Jack, of course, played for Birmingham last season having come through the ranks and made a big impression. He also kept goal for Team GB in the Olympics and then in January 2013 he turned down the chance to move to the likes of Liverpool and Chelsea and United in order to get more first team football, signing a deal with Stoke City, which is why he's now moving onwards and upwards joining a team that's leakier than the fucking Titanic.

Roberto Mancini is apparently in the frame to take over at Galatasaray after they relieved Fatih Terim of his duties. Mancini is presumably hoping to follow in the footsteps of Frank Rijkaard who, after leaving his job as Barcelona manager in 2008 moved to Galatasaray, over time he fell out of awareness in the big leagues and he most recently spent time in charge of the Saudi Arabian national team, that is until they sacked him, he now works for a Florida prep school. But seriously Robbie, good luck.

Michael Laudrup has said that Leroy Lita's time in the Swansea first-team has come to an end, which seems regrettable, Lita himself will presumably be disappointed to see his time come to an end so soon after it didn't even start in the first place.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic has added another 1 million pounds to his annual salary, now taking home a totally reasonable 12.6 million pounds per year, which should at least be able to buy him a less shit haircut or maybe a personality transplant.

Chris Hughton's job as Norwich manager is under threat after their average start to the season. The club's directors naturally see the Canaries as obvious challengers for a place in the top 4, and failure to secure even Europa League football would, of course, be a massive massive disaster for a team which includes the likes of Michael Turner, Russell Martin, Bradley Johnson and a goalkeeper with the surname of Ruddy.

The race to fill Paulo Di Canio's military issue grenade-launching combat boots is ongoing. Gus Poyet is rumoured to be out in front with Tony Pulis lagging behind him, with Gianfranco Zola, temporary incumbent Kevin Ball and Steve McLaren still further back, although it may be Gus' for the taking if Zola isn't interested, Ball isn't deemed experienced enough and McLaren trips over his umbrella.

Finally, Carlo Ancelotti has promised that his team can still score goals, even in the absence of Mesut Ozil. And it is seemingly true that Madrid are capable of finding the back of the net without the little German, so long as the ref is bribed and Cristiano Ronaldo doesn't mind doing it absolutely all on his own.

If you missed Wednesday's Capital One LDV Vans Coca-Cola Shield action then here is a roundup of what happened...
- Some 12-year-olds from anywhere except North London joined forces with Nicklarse Bendtner to help Arsenal to victory over West Bromwich Albion after a penalty shootout at the Hawthorns.
- Mark Hughes' Stoke all-stars saw off Tranmere Rovers with help from a cheeky goal by the big man with a good touch for a big man and a shit touch for a giant panda Peter Crouch, and a rare goal for Stephen 'yes, I am still a professional footballer' Ireland.
- Le Toon brushed aside Leeds United in a result some people will insist on reading far too much into.
- The holders Swansea were eliminated by Birmingham City's not actual brilliance.
- And David Moyes' Manchester United saw off Liverpool at Old Trafford with the aid of the worst marking I have ever encountered in all my years of watching under-7's football.

Happy Wednesday

Steve Bruce today said the only thing he's ever said that I actually agreed with when he likened early league cup games to friendlies. I would liken them to ipads, because both are pointless and unnecessary and i don't know who they're for.

BBC Sport today tried to examine whether Liverpool were missing Suarez, which isn't really a question worth asking, because he is a good player, any team can benefit from a player like Suarez who can do a lot of things without a lot of help. I've written an equation which accounts for it - Good Player + Luis Suarez + Another Good Player + Jordan Henderson on the bench + no Stewart Downing/Andy Carroll = a team which might sneak into 4th place.

Palermo have sacked confirmed nutcase Gennaro Gattuso, Sunderland have sacked escaped mental patient Paulo Di Canio - what we are learning from this is that teams are beginning to work out that having managers who are a couple of somethings short of a something else is no way to run a footballing club.

Robert Lewandowski has confirmed that he will be a Bayern player next season. I have an equation for this too. Good player in the German League + continued existence of Bayern Munich with wealth in tact, no match-fixing scandal, no bus crash killing the first XI, no massive financial scandal = transfer (for clarification see Manuel Neuer, Mario Gotze, Mario Mandzukic, Dante and the recently-departed Mario Gomez).

Kevin Ball(s up) wants to be the next Sunderland manager. Let's play a game of examine his record in professional football management. Last time he was given the job he was given 10 games in charge of the Mackems, he won 1 game, but yesterday he won another game (at home against League One opposition), which for me qualifies him to manage in the Premier League absolutely definitely no question whatsoever. Of course an alternative would be Gus Poyet, who amongst other things did basically good work at Brighton, he has the advantage of being an actual football manager, and he would be available immediately. Of course that doesn't put Kevin Ball on the bottom of the list, not at all, because Steve McLaren is also on the list, and before hiring him I'm sure they'd have the good sense to ask the kitman or the physio to have a crack at the job.

Jose Mourinho, apparently, went mental when they gave Moyesy the United job and only pretended that he already knew about it when the press asked him, this is according to someone who confirmedly hates his guts. It's like me writing an autobiography about Roy Keane, every other word of which would be 'fuck' or 'fucking', with every other word to that first word being an exceptionally thinly veiled insult. Anyway, apparently what Jose pointed out, when turned down for the post, was that David Moyes has won fuck all and hasn't, if you didn't notice, even worked his way out of Everton, until now. What you'll notice about Jose is that he's won fucking loads and knows how to win stuff. David Moyes couldn't win a raffle if he had the only ticket.

Jos Hooiveld is backing Southampton to follow in the footsteps of Swansea and lift the Crapitall One Mickey Mouse LDV Vans Shield next February. Unfortunately nobody has mentioned to the lanky and basically incompetent Dutchman that there are, in fact, other teams in the competition.

Alan Pardew says he is seething about his sides performance in their defeat to Hull, and if he's seething about that then you'd have to assume he's probably going to be absolutely furious when he gets sacked for doing an awful job with an excellent squad.

Good news for Arsenal fans - Nicky's back. 'Never before have I met anyone so proud and yet so utterly useless' is what Glen Cullen said about Terri Coverley on the Thick of It, but he might as well have been talking about this lanky waste of space. Expect misplaced passes, mistimed headers, misguided touches and inappropriate media comments about how good he is.

Questions...
This is the segment where I, the writer, pose questions to you, the sort of twats who would actually read the things I write...
1) why does Arsene Wenger spend all Winter watching football in a sleeping bag?
2) why is Romelu Lukaku playing for another team that isn't Chelsea?
3) does anyone else think David Moyes looks a lot like he knows he's really really really far out of his depth?